


Nightshade

by whiskeyneat



Series: The Spoils [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ASoIaF, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Game of Thrones - Freeform, World War II, a song of ice and fire - Freeform, more tags will be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-01-31 11:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18590668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyneat/pseuds/whiskeyneat
Summary: After the Bombing of Winterfell, Arya and Sansa head to the Front to find Jon. But on the road to hell, they are separated in the wood, and each must find a way back from her own dark fairytale.A World War 2 AU inspired by the line "she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs. But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream."(ASOS)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will fork at a certain point. I plan to tell each story within a separate framework. Follow me on tumblr @whiskeykneat for sneak peeks. This fic is Gendrya-centric. I've read the books and seen the show, but I always welcome constructive comments.

_1942_ .   
  
For thirty days and nights, the gallows has creaked in the winter wind. At night, the men swear they can sense the dead man walking between the bunkhouses of the camp, the snow crunching beneath his boots. And when the clouds draw back, revealing a sickly red sliver hovering just above the spine of the distant mountains, Gendry knows he does not imagine the howling that rises from the wood, setting every hair on his arms to stand on end.   
  
"Did you hear that?" Gendry whispers to his bunkmate. He doesn't know if the man is ignoring him, or if he's died during the night. It wouldn't be the first time he'd gone to sleep next to a living man only to wake up next to a corpse in the morning.   
  
But there is no reply, only the howl of the moon in the long dark night. Gendry leans back, closing his eyes. Arya. Her name is on the edge of sleep, between waking and dreams.   
  
_You're my forest lass,_ he'd whispered the last time he held her. It was early spring in the haunted wood, and they lay under a canopy of ferns wrapped in his cloak, the sunlight shifting between the fronds.   
  
_Am I?_ She teased, hitting his arm lightly. Her mouth had tasted of apple blossoms and her skin of honey nectar, and when she'd slid her hand into his trousers, he'd rolled over on top of her, poised at the slick juncture of her thighs.   
  
_Is this what you want?_   
  
Arya's breath puffed out white, her pupils dark with desire. _It's what I always want._   
  
When he'd entered her, they'd both gasped, and Gendry closed his eyes, savoring the sensation. If he'd known it would be the last time, he would have memorized the way her walls tightened around him, and her yielding sigh when he had sunk into her to the hilt, slick and wet for him. _M'lady_ , he'd groaned, kissing the soft crook of her neck, browned by the sun.   
  
_Don't call me that_ , she hissed, and wrapped her legs around his hips, driving him deeper inside of her. They'd moved together, sunlight flickering over bare skin where the war had marked them, where they'd marked each other.   
  
Arya's teeth sunk into his neck as she arched her hips to meet his, going wild beneath him as his mouth grazed her taut nipples. She'd rolled over with a cry of triumph so she was the one on top, pinning his wrists above her head as she came with fierce abandon, his name in her mouth, a prayer to the old forest gods, an incantation.   
  
_Gendry, Gendry!_   
  
Arya had been Robb's sister.   
  
_Robb_ \-- Gendry sits up and feels every bone in his body protest. When he came to this place, Robb called him _The Bull_ . Robert Barethon's bastard, that's who he is, the spitting image of Robert before he went off to the Great War. Now, both Robert and Robb are gone, and Gendry is just as hollow as the day that Arya was taken from him.   
  
It pains Gendry to think of her, yet she is the only hope he allows himself this place of death, his only beacon. _If Arya were here_ \-- he knows what she would do. That is the thought he arms himself with as he swings his legs over the side of his bunk and slips out into the night, as silently as a big man can.   
  
The gallows creak in the wind, and the dead man walks.   
  
_And the North remembers..._


	2. The Longest Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bombing of Winterfell begins, and Sansa Stark remembers...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! I will try to keep on a consistent posting schedule with this. Right now, POV alternates between Sansa and Arya before their narratives split. If you'd like to see sneak peeks or moodboards, or just send me ravens asking when the next chapter will be out, you can come say hello on my tumblr sideblog, @whiskeykneat.

**Song:** youth, daughter.   
  
_December, 1939._  
  
  
_Fly away, Little Bird. Winterfell is burning._  
  
The words explode into the small room, and Sansa Stark bolts upright in the darkness. There is nothing here: only the thick, black shadows with all the stillness of the crypt, the castle folk in the antechamber, softly singing old lullabies to keep the Long Dark at bay -- and Catelyn Stark, hunched over a half-burnt candle, mouth moving wooden in litany, praying to the spirit of her dead husband for succor.   
  
From her vigil beside the doorway, Sansa's younger sister Arya turns her head, eyes wide in the flickering light, gray as a mourning veil. "Did you hear that?"   
  
Sansa tries to remember the dream, and fails: there were dresses, she remembers, pastel and gold like puffs of meringue on the cupcakes that Mother ordered made for their debutante celebration, the night she and Arya were presented officially to the old court: dresses as fine as cobweb, light as eiderdown. She had worn cream threaded with gold that eve, like a sacrificial offering; she'd danced until the heels of her ivory kidskin slippers were spotted with blood.   
  
_And oh -- how we danced!_  
  
Her mother and father had wanted her to dance with Joffrey, son of her father's dead friend, Lord Robert, who Sansa would always remember for his loud, booming laugh, and the way he would toss her into the air as though she weighed no more than a cloud.   
  
Robert Baratheon had died in a hunting accident, or so the papers claimed, but Sansa had overheard Ned and Catelyn talking about it late at night. She had never heard her father cry before, and it had frightened her, even though she had been a great girl of twelve then, and not some sniveling child.   
  
"I didn't hear anything, Arya. Try to sleep." Sansa reaches out a hand, meaning only to offer comfort, but Arya shrinks back against the wall, fists white around her dagger, her upper lip curling in a snarl. Sansa bites her tongue, turning her face from her sister and pressing her cheek to the icy wall.   
  
If she closes her eyes again, she can almost hear the music, like the elegant waltz that Jaime Lannister had whisked her around the dance floor to, the medals on his sash gleaming.   
  
•••  
  
_That? The Seven Point Star is for the machine gun nest I took out with my platoon, Sansa Stark. I was just a boy then, not much older than one of your younger brothers. I woke up minus a hand in the field hospital, shocked to be alive. We started out two thousand men, we came back twenty-five._ His golden hand rested on her hip, warm yet lifeless, a reminder of the price for freedom, and Sansa felt a cold trickle of fear down her spine. When she looked over her shoulder, Cersei Lannister met her eye.   
  
If looks were machine gun fire, Sansa Stark would have been riddled with bullets, choking to death in a pool of her own blood, just like the boy soldiers Ned and Robert and Jaime could not save, all the ghosts they left behind in France.   
  
Jaime laughed ruefully, twirling her so that her skirts fanned out around her ankles. _But a beautiful girl like you doesn't want to hear anything about all that._  
  
_You can tell me_. Sansa felt his hand clutch at her waist, and when he looked down at her, golden and gleaming, for a moment she forgot how to breathe, dazzled by his legend.  
  
_Just smile at me, and keep on dancing, Sansa Stark... For the glory of old Westeros_. Jaime's smile for a long moment was a bitter thing, and it did not reach his eyes. _When many years have passed, look back on this night, and remember --_  
  
But whatever he had been about to say had been lost as the music changed, and Joffrey cut in, resplendent in a suit and tails, green eyes gleaming hard and sharp as cut glass. His nails dug into her wrist for a moment, and he'd smirked when she tried to pull away. She should have known, then, what kind of a person Joffrey Baratheon was: but she had been an innocent, then -- back when she still believed in fairy tales.   
  
•••  
  
_Boom. Boom. Boom._  
  
From the base of the mountain, the cavalcade of sleek, gleaming cars clusters in the trees like a murder of crows awaiting the spoils of battle. Cersei Lannister leans against the hood of a moon-drenched black Mercedes, binoculars to her eyes. She is smiling.   
  
The sky is lit green with fire, like the fairy lights that would dance over the Western Front, back when Sandor Clegane fought in the Argonne with the Foreign Legion, half a world away. He can feel every reverberation in his bones, and if he shudders deep inside when he sees the towers of Winterfell crumble on impact, he gives no outward sign of it.   
  
After all, it is not the North he fears for, but a girl sitting beside a fountain under the moon, wilted camellias in her flame-kissed hair.   
  
_No one should hurt you, little bird_. Sandor had held out his handkerchief to the girl, and when she didn't move, he stepped forward and dabbed at the blood, where the sigil ring had cut her lip. _I'll kill any soul who lays a hand on you again, mark me._   
  
She looked up at him and did a double take, shuddering as her eyes took in the ruin of his face, and he took a step back, bitterness seeping into his heart.   
  
_Mr Clegane --_ her voice stopped him in his tracks. _Why do you call me a little bird?_  
  
Sandor turned the good side of his face back to look at her. His heart did something strange in his chest, and for a moment he had to take a deep breath to steady himself. _Do you remember…_ Of course she wouldn’t remember. He knew that he was only a foolish Hound, too hideous for a Little Bird to look upon. But she stole glances, waiting for him to continue, and he swallowed, resting a hand on the familiar handle of his pistol for a moment, breathing in deep. Sandor Clegane had never been a fearful man, not even when faced with a thousand to one odds in the deserts of Egypt, but he was strangely afraid now. _Do you remember last solstice, the night of your debut?_

  
A soft smile came over her face, arresting Sandor so thoroughly that his head buzzed. _What of it?_ _I remember that Arya wanted to play swing music, but Father, in all his wisdom, hid the record player._ The smile dimmed in her eyes. _That was when Joffrey told me we would be wed. I should be happier, don't you think? After all, we are supposed to be in love._ _  
_  
_If he's hurt you, I'll --_ Sandor clenched his fists. He'd dreamed of punching that little fucker ever since he'd started working for the Lannisters, some ten years before. If Joffrey had been the one to hit her this night, he knew he would have laid him out like kindling. He's never hit a woman, and by the Seven, Cersei Lannister is lucky she wasn't born a man.   
  
_I think Cersei wishes she had been. Born a man, I mean._ Sansa's lips twitched into a reluctant smile as Sandor realized he'd spoken aloud. He had never wanted to take a woman in his arms more at that moment. _Back to my question -- why do you call me Little Bird, Mr Clegane?_ _  
_  
_Boom. Boom. Boom._   
  
The snapshot of Sansa crumples and burns in his mind's eye, and coldness settles into Sandor's heart as beside him, Cersei lets out a crow of triumph.   
  
_Fly away, Little Bird. Winterfell is burning._ _  
__  
_ •••  
  
Sansa jerks awake to the sound of total and utter silence. The candles gutter in a pool of paraffin, and it is so cold in the crypts that frost has settled on the cuffs of her sleeves, where she has breathed against them. She tugs Robb's old gray woolen cardigan around her shoulders, she is swimming in it. Rickon and Bran are fast asleep with the dogs, a pile of fur and boys. She recognizes her feather blanket tossed over them, and wiggles her toes and fingers, which have begun to lose feeling.  
  
_Tonight is the Longest Night. Soon comes the sun, and then the reign of Winter will end._  
  
Beside her post, Arya is slumped over with her head on her knees, seemingly oblivious to the silence above. The only sign her sister yet lives are the white tendrils of air that escape from her nostrils with every exhale. Her dagger has fallen to the floor beside her feet, fingers curled tight as though they hold it still. As quietly as she can, Sansa crawls over to Arya, pulling Arya's blanket over the both of them and snuggling into the warm softness of the eiderdown.   
  
Only Catelyn is awake, lips moving in silence, eyes purple with shadows. Sansa recognizes the names her mother whispers: _Ned. Robb. Let them be safe, even Jon Snow and Theon -- merciful Seven, let them be safe!_   
  
When the Lannisters hung Ned from the heart-tree, the name of Stark had become forfeit, the line broken. _You are no longer Starks, but bastards all. Let the name of Stark die, and his children become Snow, melted into the river at the lion's roar._   
  
"But we will always be Starks." She does not realize she has spoken aloud until Arya bumps her with one shoulder, knife-sharp under Ned’s old greatcoat.   
  
Her sister is all hard lines and angles, honed to a sliver of Valyrian steel. _Winter has come._ The thought makes Sansa's gut twist uncomfortably. They all have suffered, but Arya was always their father's favorite, and his death has taken the bloom of youth from her cheeks, sharpening her into someone hard and sharp, someone Sansa barely recognizes anymore -- _If I ever really knew her at all._ For a moment, Sansa can pretend that all is well, that this is only a dream, that any minute Robb and Jon will burst through the door, and wake her.   
  
"Kwork!"   
  
Sansa catches her breath, laughing at herself a little, and shares a look  with Arya, lips quirked in a half-smile of exasperated affection. "Bran's dreaming he's a raven again."   
  
Arya grunts, and lets her head fall back to her knees, keeping a space between them. Sansa has never understood her younger sister. At the ball, Arya had smuggled in her dagger, vowing darkly she would stab any man who dared take liberties with her. She had fought the dress Catelyn had put her in as well, pointing out that women in America wore trousers like men.   
  
_Well, you do not live in America, Arya,_ Mother pointed out, white-lipped.   
  
But Father had only laughed. _That's my girl!_ _  
_  
"I think it has stopped. I think it's over." Sansa coughs delicately, trying to get her mother's attention. She taps at her watch face, still ticking on. _3:01_. "It's nearly dawn. Shouldn't we wake the small folk and prepare to climb above, Mother?" Sansa thinks of her bed with longing, of hot water bottles and Lady’s warm body at her feet.  
  
Catelyn's head whips up. In the months since Ned's execution, her mother has become a ghost: the castle folk call her Lady Stoneheart, as though when Ned died, she died too, everything soft about her turning to stone. Catelyn opens her mouth to respond, and then Sansa hears nothing but a long, low whistle, piercing the depths.   
  
_BOOM!_  
  
The explosion rocks the crypt, and they are all on their feet, screams echoing down the corridor from the antechamber. Sansa is frozen to the spot. Catelyn's fierce blue gaze sweeps across the four of them, and Sansa thinks that if she lives to be an old woman, she will never forget it: it is equal parts grief and love, stricken with horror.   
  
_Boom. Boom. Boom_. Not bombs, but boots. Sansa knows she should feel relief, but there is only cold dread in the pit of her stomach, and in her mind's eye she hears Joffrey Lannister's cruel laughter as the body of Ned Stark twisted in the wind, the engagement ring on her finger stealing the breath from her body as though she were being strangled too.   
  
"Open up! In the name of House Lannister and the Wehrmacht, open the door!"   
  
_Boom. Boom. Boom._  
  
The tears tremble beneath Sansa's lids, and Arya rounds on her fiercely, her words like a curse. "Don't. You. Dare."   
  
Catelyn turns, looking over her shoulder at her daughters, the look in her eyes making her face like a stranger's. "We must protect our people," Catelyn's mouth is a thin line, and Sansa can feel how hard her mother is trying to be brave. "Your father would have wanted --" Dirt rains down from the ceiling, and Catelyn takes Rickon by the hand, Bran swinging forward on his crutches. The dogs follow them, pressing in on both sides as her mother and brothers hurry down the tunnel to the antechamber.   
  
Sansa cannot move, she is frozen in place. _Wehrmacht. House Lannister._ The look on Cersei Lannister's face as she told Catelyn, _You were once someone, but_ ** _I_** _shall be Queen. And if you do not turn over the enemies of the state I know you have been harboring, you shall pay for it._ _  
_  
_We will never turn them over to you!_ Robb had declared, Theon and Jon stepping to his side, a wall between their mother and Cersei. _Unlike_ ** _you_** _, we will never betray the North. My father --_ _  
_  
_Your father was a traitor! Contain your son, Catelyn, or I shall have my Mountain do it --_ _  
_  
Gregor Clegane had stepped forward, hand on his gun, a ghastly smile on his face. _My queen?_  
  
Only Catelyn's hand on Robb's arm had stayed him from violence. _Your father --_ she swallowed, forcing her head away from her husband's dangling corpse. _Leave my children out of this!_ _  
_  
_It is your children, or it is the enemies of the state._ Cersei smiled, as though she had won. _As one mother to another, I trust you will steer your house on the right course._ _  
_  
When the Lannisters had gone, Robb had turned to Catelyn, his face dark with resolution. _You can't -- we can't -- Father would never --_ _  
_  
_They don't know that, my son. You are House Stark, now._   
  
But Robb is gone now, too. Vanished from university without a trace, as though he never existed. Jon and Theon have left for the Front, and the last anyone has heard of them -- But she cannot think of that.  
  
In Sansa's head is a cacophony of ravens, cawing all at once. She picks up her skirts, running down the tunnel and into the crowd of smallfolk, forming a barrier between her and her family. Across the room, she sees Catelyn begin to lift the deadbolt. " _Don't_ \--" Sansa screams, as though she would fly across the room like a bird, and tear their mother's hands from the latch.   
  
Catelyn's lips move, but it is too far for Sansa to see. This is what he would have wanted -- But whatever Ned would have wanted is lost as the door crashes open, sending Catelyn falling to the floor in a swirl of dark skirts.   
  
_Rat-tat-tat._  



End file.
